U.S. Began Gathering Actors
In Visa-Bribe Scheme in June

By

David S. Cloud Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated July 11, 2002 12:01 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- U.S. authorities last month began hurriedly rounding up dozens of Jordanians and Pakistanis who allegedly paid bribes of as much as $13,000 each for fraudulent U.S. visas, after investigators learned one of the men and possibly two others lived with Sept. 11 hijackers.

The State Department's Diplomatic Security Service had known since January that 71 visas had been issued during 2000 and 2001 without proper documentation from the U.S. embassy in Doha, Qatar, a Persian Gulf kingdom. But the agency didn't begin...